


Crawling to the Door

by Ruby Prism (rubyprism)



Category: Loveless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-05
Updated: 2010-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-07 01:35:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubyprism/pseuds/Ruby%20Prism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're hiding underneath the smoke in the room...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crawling to the Door

The security camera light in Ritsu-sensei's office was not on. That was bad. Today sensei would not lecture Soubi from his chair. That long part would be skipped.

Soubi knew he should move immediately into place and prepare himself, but he hesitated. Ritsu-sensei stood up and moved towards the camera controls mounted on the wall. He had not glanced at Soubi even once as he turned the dial, turning on the security camera light.

No, that was a different light from the usual one. This had never happened before.

Soubi cursed his own surge of fear.

"Soubi-kun." The tall figure did not even turn around. "Were you inattentive?"

"I saw the light was off, Sensei." Soubi's stomach rolled in dread. He flattened his ears to keep them from twitching anxiously.

"Why did you not prepare yourself?"

"I thought you were going to change the dial. I thought you had not yet turned it on, but were going to."

Wrong answer!

Ritsu-sensei's voice was silk sliding over a cracked plate of glass: a delicate smoothness that might catch at any time. "How did you observe this?"

"Hmm." If he came up with the answer, he might make Ritsu-sensei very proud. He ran over the incident in his mind. What had he seen? What had he heard? What had he smelled? Nothing out of the ordinary. Had Ritsu-sensei made some small movement? Had anything stood out? But Soubi couldn't think of a thing.

"Nothing stands out, Sensei. It was a general impression. I just thought for some reason you intended to change the dial. You hadn't finished-- whatever you were doing, so you hadn't turned on the camera yet."

"You must be specific." The silk had snagged, and Soubi couldn't stop it. "Tell me what you noticed with your five senses."

"I don't know." No matter how he concentrated, he couldn't find it. Couldn't reverse this conversation. How could he save that silk thread? How could he limit the damage? "My five senses didn't notice anything that I remember."

"You must have." And it was pulling, pulling out of control, and torn right out of Soubi's hands. "You failed to observe it." Sharp, sharp voice.

Ritsu-sensei turned the camera off again. Bluntly: fear, and relief, and more fear. Now he would not know what it meant for the second light to be on. Not this time. His ear twitched. He moved to the wall to prepare himself. Whether Sensei meant to change it again or not, his job was to obey the signal.

"I changed my mind," said Ritsu-sensei, while Soubi stripped off his own clothing. Soubi wondered why his teacher was so strongly displeased with an unusually small lack of observation; it must be far beyond Soubi's level why this mattered so much. Sensei always knew best. He always had a reason for what he did. Any notion Soubi had to the contrary was always demolished, often long past the actual incident, with an explanation that showed how much Sensei knew. It was too subtle, too complicated for Soubi to figure out sometimes-- but it didn't matter whether he knew the reasons or not. If Ritsu-sensei wanted him to know the _why_, he would explain it when it was time.

Soubi's tail swished in the chill air as he faced the wall and waited for his teacher's preparations. He worried about that second light. Was it something good? Was he being denied something positive and punished instead because of his observational failure? But that light had frightened him, and yet again, he did not know why. His five senses had failed.

Ritsu-sensei was standing very close behind him now, his breath tickling the back of Soubi's feline ear. "No sacrifice will want you if you can't observe anything."

"I'm sorry, Sensei. I regret my failure." It was the only thing to say, but it was also true.

Soubi's ear began to twitch involuntarily at the feel of his teacher's warm breath, lashing back against his smooth dry lips. He fought to keep the reflex under control, but it wasn't helped as Ritsu-sensei stood up and his silky hair slid across the sensitive corner where Soubi's ear joined his head.

Footsteps, muffled and calm. The sound of a drawer. Ritsu-sensei's scent still lingering, the scent of the whip. Soubi knew his teacher was close behind him, within striking range, and he waited for the blow. Instead, however, the leather tail was drawn gently across his back. At any moment, the blow would still land.

Soubi willed himself not to make a sound. He willed himself not to move. Still he waited. When would he be hit? So light, the supple leather caress.

Ah, there was the blow.

Another, ice down his back. It was practically routine.

"I wasn't planning to do this today," said Ritsu-sensei, "but you deserve it."

Blows rained down, Soubi trying not to tremble, trying to conceal the information of where it hurt the most, but Ritsu-sensei knew although he stayed so still. Was he just so used to Soubi's body that he could predict what to do? His accuracy was preternatural, as if Soubi'd sung a wordspell to enhance it.

If only wordspells would fix things. If only wordspells wouldn't delay things more. Soubi had once restrained his teacher on the desperate notion that it might be a test. He had hurt much, much harder after that.

It had been years since Soubi envisioned his teacher in restriction, but the image came to mind, unbidden. He tried to close his mind, tried to push it away; it had only ever made him angry, and made sensei angrier yet, when he knew, and he _did_ know; he was there, immediate, Ritsu, present, Ritsu--

"Soubi-kun!"

The blows had stopped.

Sensei's most dangerous voice. "Go away. I do not want to see you until I call for you."

Soubi's head buzzed, and his heart hurt, and he wondered, dimly, what he'd done so very wrong this time. "Yes, Sensei."

"I will not find you anywhere. You will not pass me in the hall. I won't discover you in the library. I won't catch the slightest whiff of you anywhere, or you will hurt."

Confused. Surely Soubi was at least supposed to go to class-- or was he? How was he supposed to endure these next few-- hours? days? weeks? not knowing what would happen, or when.

"What am I supposed to do in the meantime?" he asked plaintively.

"Reflect upon your mistake. And go. Now."

What mistake had he made? Frightened to ask, frightened of his banishment, Soubi picked up his fallen clothing and headed for the door.

He could not help one last glance-- it had not been forbidden-- back at his teacher. Ritsu-sensei stood with his head down, staring at the floor, the whip dangling listlessly from one hand. Knowing he should not see this moment of mysterious weakness, Soubi averted his gaze, and swallowed the lump in his throat.


End file.
